The Gardener by Rabindranath Tagore

[Dark Saint Alaick]

80.




With a glance of your eyes you could plunder all the wealth of
songs struck from poets' harps, fair woman!
But for their praises you have no ear, therefore I come to praise
you.
You could humble at your feet the proudest heads in the world.
But it is your loved ones, unknown to fame, whom you choose to
worship, therefore I worship you.
The perfection of your arms would add glory to kingly splendour
with their touch.
But you use them to sweep away the dust, and to make clean your
humble home, therefore I am filled with awe.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

81.




Why do you whisper so faintly in my ears, O Death, my Death?
When the flowers droop in the evening and cattle come back to
their stalls, you stealthily come to my side and speak words
that I do not understand.
Is this how you must woo and win me with the opiate of drowsy
murmur and cold kisses, O Death, my Death?

Will there be no proud ceremony for our wedding?
Will you not tie up with a wreath your tawny coiled locks?
Is there none to carry your banner before you, and will not the
night be on fire with your red torch-lights, O Death, my Death?

Come with your conch-shells sounding, come in the sleepless
night.
Dress me with a crimson mantle, grasp my hand and take me.
Let your chariot be ready at my door with your horses neighing
impatiently.
Raise my veil and look at my face proudly, O Death, my Death !

[Dark Saint Alaick]

82.



We are to play the game of death to-night, my bride and I.
The night is black, the clouds in the sky are capricious, and the
waves are raving at sea.
We have left our bed of dreams, flung open the door and come out,
my bride and I.
We sit upon a swing, and the storm winds give us a wild push from
behind.
My bride starts up with fear and delight, she trembles and clings
to my breast.
Long have I served her tenderly.
I made for her a bed of flowers and I closed the doors to shut
out the rude light from her eyes.
I kissed her gently on her lips and whispered softly in her ears
till she half swooned in languor.
She was lost in the endless mist of vague sweetness.
She answered not to my touch, my songs failed to arouse her.
To-night has come to us the call of the storm from the wild.
My bride has shivered and stood up, she has clasped my hand and
come out.
Her hair is flying in the wind, her veil is fluttering, her
garland rustles over her breast.
The push of death has swung her into life.
We are face to face and heart to heart, my bride and I.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

83.




She dwelt on the hillside by the edge of a maize-field, near the
spring that flows in laughing rills through the solemn shadows
of ancient trees. The women came there to fill their jars, and
travellers would sit there to rest and talk. She worked and
dreamed daily to the tune of the bubbling stream.

One evening the stranger came down from the cloud-hidden peak;
his locks were tangled like drowsy snakes. We asked in wonder,
"Who are you?" He answered not but sat by the garrulous stream
and silently gazed at the hut where she dwelt. Our hearts
quaked in fear and we came back home when it was night.

Next morning when the women came to fetch water at the spring by
the _deodar_ trees, they found the doors open in her hut,
but her voice was gone and where was her smiling face? The
empty jar lay on the floor and her lamp had burnt itself out in
the corner. No one knew where she had fled to before it was
morning--and the stranger had gone.

In the month of May the sun grew strong and the snow melted, and
we sat by the spring and wept. We wondered in our mind, "Is
there a spring in the land where she has gone and where she can
fill her vessel in these hot thirsty days?" And we asked each
other in dismay, "Is there a land beyond these hills where we
live?"

It was a summer night; the breeze blew from the south; and I sat
in her deserted room where the lamp stood still unlit. When
suddenly from before my eyes the hills vanished like curtains
drawn aside. "Ah, it is she who comes. How are you, my child?
Are you happy? But where can you shelter under this open sky?
And, alas, our spring is not here to allay your thirst."

"Here is the same sky," she said, "only free from the fencing
hills,--this is the same stream grown into a river,--the same
earth widened into a plain." "Everything is here," I sighed,
"only we are not." She smiled sadly and said, "You are in my
heart." I woke up and heard the babbling of the stream and the
rustling of the _deodars_ at night.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

84.




Over the green and yellow rice-fields sweep the shadows of the
autumn clouds followed by the swift chasing sun.
The bees forget to sip their honey; drunken with light they
foolishly hover and hum.
The ducks in the islands of the river clamour in joy for mere
nothing.
Let none go back home, brothers, this morning, let none go to
work.
Let us take the blue sky by storm and plunder space as we run.
Laughter floats in the air like foam on the flood.
Brothers, let us squander our morning in futile songs.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

85.




Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the
spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the
vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang
one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred
years.


THE END